BANNERET, an English name of dignity, now nearly if not entirely ex tinct. It denoted a degree which was above that expressed by the word miles or knight, and below that expressed by the word barn or baron. Milks, speaking of English dignities, says that the banneret was the last among the greatest and the first of the second rank. Many writs of the early kings of England run to the earls, barons, bannerets, and knights. When the order of baronet was instituted, an order with which we must be careful not to confound the banneret, precedence was given to the baronet above all banne rets, except those who were made in the field, under the banner, the king being present.
This clause in the baronet's patent brings before us one mode in which the banneret was created. He was a knight so created in the field, and it is believed that this honour was conferred usually as a reward for some particular service. Thus, in the fifteenth of King Edward III., John de Copeland was made a banneret for his service in taking David Bruce, king of Scotland, at the battle of Durham. John Chandos, a name which continually oc curs in the history of the wars of the Black Prince, and who performed many signal acts of valour, was created a ban• neret by the Black Prince and Don Pe dro of Castile. It is in the reign of Edward III. that we hear most 3f the dignity of banneret. Reginald de Cob ham and William de is Pole were by him created bannerets. In this last instance the creation was not in the field, nor for military services, for De la Pole was a merchant of Hull, and his services con sisted in supplying the king with money fbr his continental expeditions. We have therefore here an instance of a second mode by which a banneret might be cre ated, that is, by patent-grant from the king. Miles mentions a third mode, which prevails also on the Continent. When the king intended to create a ban neret, the person about to receive the dignity presented the sovereign with a swallow-tailed banner rolled round the staff; the king unrolled it, and, cutting off the ends, delivered it a banniere par r& to the new banneret, who was thence forth entitled to use the banner of higher dignity. Sometimes the grant of
the dignity was followed by the grant of means by which to support it. This was the case with some of those above men tioned. De la Pole received a munificent gift, the manor of Burstwick in Holder ness, and 500 marks annual fee, issuing out of the port of Hull. (Dugdale's Baronage. vol. ii. p. 183.) The rank of the banneret is well un derstood, but what particular privilege he enjoyed above other knights is not now known. It was a personal honour ; and yet in De la Pole's patent it is expressed that the grant was made to him to enable him and his heirs the better to support his dignity. But the patent was perhaps irregular, as it seems to have been sur rendered. No catalogue has been formed of persons admitted into this order, and it is presumed that they were few. The institution of the order of baronets pro bably contributed greatly to the abolition of the banneret. The knights of the Order of the Bath in modern times ap proach nearest to the bannerets of former days. In the civil wars, Captain John Smith, who rescued the king's standard at the battle of Edgehill, is said to have been created a banneret. When King George III. intended to proceed to the Bore, in 1797, to visit Lord Duncan's fleet, it was rumoured that he designed to create several of the officers bannerets. The weather was unfavourable and the king returned without reaching the fleet; but the dignity which he conferred on Captain (afterwards Sir Henry) Trollope, in whose vessel he sailed, was understood to be that of a knight banneret.
The French antiquaries since Pasquier have represented the banneret as having been so called as being s knight entitled to bear a banner in the field ; or, in other words, a knight whose quota of men to be furnished to the king's army for the lands he held of him were of that num ber (it is uncertain what) which consti tuted of itself a body of men sufficient to have their own leader. In England it is believed there were few tenants bringing any considerable number of men whc were not of the rank of the baronet.